Maritime Literary Nonfiction, Art and History in Google Earth

The Hudson River School

Where Art Meets the Estuary

Kindred spirits by Asher Brown Durand

The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscapepainters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism. The paintings for which the movement is named depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area, including the Catskill, Adirondack, and the White Mountains; eventually works by the second generation of artists associated with the school expanded to include other locales (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The purpose of this project is to have the user come to learn about the Hudson River School movement and to explore the Hudson River Estuary. The tours are a link between the beauty captured by the artist and the unique ecosystem, where fresh water draining off the land mixes with salty ocean water.

There are two Google Earth tours of the approximate locations of the paintings. The Points of Interest (POI) include an info window with the painting and an activity link at the bottom of the window. Where possible, the imagery and the painting are in alignment. The tours include seventeen works, mostly in the Hudson River Valley. They are identical except for the following four folders included in the Activity Folder Tour: Hudson River Tour, Stream Capture Activity, Delaware River Activity and Mohonk Folder. These folders consist of watershed and topographic map overlays and POI’s. Click on the folder to open it and view the contents. Click on the POI to fly to the location.